The production of conventional optoelectronic components of this kind usually requires individual preparatory steps, such as, for example, placing the semiconductor function region or a semiconductor chip containing the semiconductor function region in a housing, contacting the semiconductor chip with external interconnects or bonding wires or overmolding the semiconductor chip with a protective envelope. Individual preparatory steps are usually cost-intensive compared to processing steps, which can be performed concurrently on a large number of items.
The semiconductor function regions can for example be created from a semiconductor layer sequence in the wafer composite, which contains the semiconductor layer sequence disposed on a carrier layer. The wafer composite is then usually singulated into semiconductor chips, which can be processed further in individual processing steps for optoelectronic components.
Furthermore, with conventional components it is often difficult to create very flat structures due to the use of bonding wire to contact the semiconductor function region. The arc of the bonding wire is often relatively high and can be a major determinant of the height of an optoelectronic component. In addition, a housing created separately from the semiconductor layer sequence will often have much larger spatial dimensions than the semiconductor layer sequence and can make it difficult to implement small optoelectronic components.